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Mugshots of Sydney’s 1920s criminals on display for the first time

They are photographs of Sydneysiders from the Roaring 1920’s, but they were never meant to appear in family photo albums, or to be lovingly tucked away in silver frames on salon side tables.

They are the mugshots of the city’s criminal class taken in the years following the First World War, and found in their thousands in the repository of the New South Wales Police Forensic Photographic Archive - 130 of the most stunning examples making their way almost a century later, onto the walls of the Museum of Sydney.

The shots have retained their detail and clarity, as a result of being recorded on glass negatives, which battle the travails of time far better than printed photographs.

Mugshots of Sydney's criminal class post WW1 are on display. (9NEWS)

But more importantly, the police photographer has caught each subject in full length, as well as the obligatory head shot, meaning the nuances of life in 1920’s Sydney have also been caught - the weary suits that some wear, in a time where every man wore a suit and hat, the detail such that one can pick the knitted ties.

The fashion of the flapper era is also on show; women’s hair in slick bobs wedged beneath bonnets, small heels and stockings regularly reoccurring, along with the forlorn look of being busted.

Being in the immediate wake of the First World War, there are soldiers who have been broken by conflict and who break bad when they get home.

There are the fools who fess up on the first pinch, and the freaks who fashion their pants to make it easy to flash.

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And there are the truly bad; gangsters and bosses who would shoot or slash first, without even considering to ask the question.

One hundred and thirty pictures are on display. (9NEWS)

And this decade of photography is unique in law enforcement around the planet, where the traditional head shot/side shot was becoming police procedure in the western world’s major capitols.

Sydney’s shots aimed to show the subject in their entirety, as many crims would keep ahead of the law by changing their names regularly, making it hard to keep track on their movements.

But the full length shots allowed Sydney police to see them at full length for easier identification.

Some descriptions would note elements of clothing that would regularly be worn; one female offender was noted for her white shirt and blue hat.

By the 30’s, police procedure became regulated, and the head and side shots that we are now so familiar with, became the standard practise.

The shots have retained their detail after being recorded on glass negatives. (9NEWS)The subjects were caught in full as well as traditional mug shots. (9NEWS)

But these glass plates, unseen for decades, have beautifully cocooned a slice of Sydney history, from the perspective of portraits of the sort of Sydneysiders who would not usually pose for portraiture; stunning time capsules of Sydney from another era and from another side, being its underbelly.

“Underworld – Mugshots of the Roaring Twenties” opens at the Museum of Sydney from this Saturday.